was Arnold's victory a blacklash against professional politicians

[pstokely]

or just Gray Davis

[Maple]

1. Movie star

mania.

Had he run for the Dems he would have won.

[noiretextatique]

2. professional politicians, not just davis

considering that what's his name has absolutely no political experience.

[RoonShark]

3. Volatile, Quixotic, Unsophisticated

Most of the Arnie thing is about unsophisticated voters looking to shake things up. I don't think it it's as serious as some DU'ers are taking it. After all, this happened in California, which used to be known for its volatile, quixotic population. After the Arnie election, we'll start to hear the California jokes again.

[maggrwaggr]

4. I believe that's a lot of it.

Gray Davis is difficult to support. I never did like the guy. I feel the only reason he won in the first place is that the republicans were extremely stupid and nominated an even bigger loser in Bill Simon. The lesser of two losers won.

So in the recall, the Dems didn't really have anything to present except that the recall was a bad idea. It WAS a bad idea, but I guess people thought "wow, here's a chance for a second chance" that we usually don't get.

The whole thing is just weird as hell to me, but i'm trying to make sense of it.

I never did like Davis, but hated the recall much more.